


Hard to be lucky in Love

by saint2sinners



Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Rain, Unexpected Meeting, lost virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 02:19:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2049693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saint2sinners/pseuds/saint2sinners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's raining and Arnold doesn't even know what he's waiting for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard to be lucky in Love

'Do you believe in heaven above?

Do you believe in love?

Don't tell a lie

Don't be false and untrue

It all comes back to you.'

The sound of raindrops falling with the gentle pitter-patter against the skylight did not suit the Zeromancer mp3 he was currently listening to.

Arnold's darkened room flashed instantaneously with a bright flash before it faded back to the mere glow reflected by his computer screen, the only source of light attempting to battle away the shadows sharing his room.

On the other hand the lightning and thunder accompanying the sudden downpour did add an unexpected element of atmosphere as the lead singer's voice filtered out through the speakers to echo in his head.

He couldn't understand it. He'd had a great day. He'd been on a perfect date with the perfect girl. They'd had fun at the movies and fooled around in the park. Lila had been sweet and polite and had looked incredible. Not a hair out of place from when he'd picked her up to when he'd dropped her off at home later that evening.

Surprising after he'd considered how mussed he'd been after their stint in the park.

He turned his head to the left to look at the silver picture frame to the left of his potato alarm clock. In it was a month-old snapshot of himself and Lila sitting on the school bus and holding hands that Sid had taken. She was smiling at him as he started out the window.

He sighed. She was attentive, gentle, considerate, polite, kind, confident, hardworking, generous, gorgeous and an absolute lady. After five or so months of dating he'd even found out that she was great in bed. Lila was everything he'd ever wanted in a girl. She was perfect.

He understood her completely and was happy with her. What his not-so-little seventeen year old head couldn't wrap around was why, if he had the perfect girlfriend for almost a year now, he was lying in the middle of the night, unable too sleep and –for lack of better word or understanding- waiting? Waiting for what he had no clue.

Arnold sighed and squeezed his eyes shut and turning to look back out through the skylight over his bed while listening as the computer loaded a new track. He considered calling Lila just to talk before he realized that late as it was she'd be asleep by now same as everyone else. Everyone but him, that is. The boarding house had been as silent as it was likely to get for two hours. Lila might have been a lot of things but he didn't think she'd be pleased at being woken this late for no reason.

The mellow tones of Vertical Horizon's 'Everything you want' had finally started to cause his eye's to begin to droop for the first time that night and he considered getting up to at least turn off the computer screen before he fell asleep. There was just tiny gap between which his vision conspired to travel.

Someone ran past the skylight.

Arnold jerked back awake before he even realized he'd done so. His first reaction was to call someone but he remembered they were all already asleep. He grabbed a jacket form the floor and threw it on. Pulling up the hood with one hand he climbed up the steps in the wall. He paused for a second. Bracing himself he quickly climbed through the gap he'd opened the skylight.

He wiped away the stray drops of rain from his eyes. Arnold peered through the dark to try and find the person. Lightning flashed and he flinched but it had been enough. He headed towards the water tower and the figure sitting curled up beneath it.

"Hello? Are you okay?"

"A-Arnold!"

Arnold was shocked to see a soaked Helga jerk her head out of her lap and stare at him with two terrified cerulean eyes.

The pink bow holding back together the pony tail her nape should have given it away.

"Why aren't you asleep?"

"Why aren't I…forget about that. Helga what are you doing on my roof?"

Still in shock he watched as Helga blushed and brushed a strand of golden hair aware from her eyes…and her thankfully tweezed eyebrows. She shrugged before looking back at him and half-jokingly answered, "Getting out of the rain."

Arnold flinched before looking down at her. Blue jeans, sneakers, a pink shirt and a black vinyl jacket, same thing she'd been wearing at school, all completely soaked through except the jacket of course. All skin tight too. Arnold gulped and forced his post adolescent brain back on track.

"You're soaking wet."

"Great grasp of the obvious Hairboy." Arnold frowned, obviously the terror he had seen had worn off. He took a step forward but before he could say a word she seemed to anticipate that he was going to speak and jumped in that annoying habit of hers.

"Don't worry, I'm just waiting until till the rain stops then I'll be gone.

"That wasn't what I was going to say." How was it that he never seemed to frown more then when he was around the girl? "Helga, you can't just sit here 'til it stops raining. You'll freeze."

Helga scrunched down the bit of emotion that wanted to rise at his comment. She slammed and locked the door where the feelings of her child hood now lived. In the back of her head and out of her mind's eye. She reminded herself that it was just Arnold being Arnold, same as always. He would have reacted the same way no matter who'd been on his roof at two in the morning, in the pouring rain. She couldn't deal with those thoughts on top of everything else, not then. The lightning flashed.

"Helga…"

She glanced at Arnold with an annoyed expression before going back to her previous position leaning her head against her knees and answering him in her usual tactless manner of speech. "Relax Football-head, I'll live."

She wasn't even damn listening to him. After years of having her tormenting him, nothing got on his nerves more than when she'd just started ignoring him. The girl was impossible. If he were in the least bit sane he'd go back inside and leave her right where she was. It was obviously what she wanted.

He looked at the ground at the small dry area in the center of the tower and his eyes subconsciously followed the droplet trail to the small huddled figure. A stiff gust of wind blasted its way across the rooftop and as he watched her shudder he knew he had no choice.

Arnold unclenched his jaw and walked the few steps forward until he was standing right in front of Helga. He crossed his arms and waited for her to look back up him with slightly red-rimmed eyes.

"You still here?"

"Look Helga, I'm not gonna let you freeze up here just because your in a mood. Now are you gonna come down stairs with me or am I gonna have to knock you out and carry you."

Helga looked like she was giving serious consideration to knocking him unconscious. Obviously it was a bad choice of words when dealing with this specific breed of female. Instead, to Arnold's immense relief, she just slowly shook her head before grinning and reaching a hand for him to help her up.

"You never quit do you St Arnold?"

Arnold grinned with relief the he wasn't going to be sporting a shiner come morning. He'd never been formally introduced to 'Ol Betsy' and he'd like to keep it that way.

"You have to ask? You've only known me since preschool."

Helga flinched at his comment and Arnold quickly grabbed her hand before she could pull it away. He had already pulled her up before realizing he wasn't touching skin in his palm. Looking down her noticed she was wearing a pair of black, finger-less, weight-training gloves.

He looked at her with both eyebrows raised in question before she blushed again be fore simply saying, "They make gripping easier when I climb. Not all the buildings have safe fire escapes.

Arnold opened his mouth to comment or question but shut it as he realized the futility of trying to understand the neighborhood anomaly that was Helga in the wet and the cold. It was hard enough to understand the girl in the warm and dry. Arnold sighed for what seemed the hundredth time that night before turning to walk to his skylight. He got to the skylight and held it open a bit wider then before for Helga to get through while blocking as much of the rain as possible.

He realized she was serious about the climbing thing when he saw it was unnecessary as she just crouched and slipped through the gap only needing half the space he had used to get through when he first came out. With one foot on the wall ladder at the foot of his bed she swung the other and jumped down to land beside his bed with minimum splatter of water from her damp state hitting his the bedcover.

Arnold followed her through and climbed down the ladder. It is almost unnecessary to mention that his dismount resulted in a bigger mess of water on the floor and the end of his bed. He looked up to see Helga grinning at the mess he made with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her rather wet, slightly transparent chest…

Arnold quickly crossed to a set of drawers against the wall and retrieved a faded blue pajama pants and top with brown teddy bears stitched onto it. He walked over to Helga making sure to keep his eyes above her neckline.

"Here, your gonna get sick if you stay in those wet clothes. Put these on and I'll put your stuff in the dryer downstairs."

Helga took the small bundle from him before unrolling the pants and lifting it up to see.

"These look really familiar Arnold." She looked at him and grinned. "If I remember correctly the last time I saw you in these I was a bit taller then you so I seriously doubt they'll fit seven years later."

Arnold blushed and after a silent pray of gratitude to puberty grumbled, "You haven't grown much since then and it's only for a little while."

Helga shook her head and decided not to argue. He was just ticked because he'd never grown more then an inch or two taller then her. At least that's what Phoebe told her Gerald said. She peeled off the jacket and was about to take off her top when she realized she hadn't heard the sound of a door closing. She turned to see Arnold looking at her with a slightly dazed expression and froze. He seemed to snap back to himself in a moment because he stuttered a quick "Oh…s-sorry" and dashed out of the room.

Helga undressed quickly, only having a brief struggle with some very suborn rain-wet jeans, before less quickly putting on the pajamas. It left her wrists and a large section of her shins uncovered, showed about an inch of her stomach and was a little tight across the chest, but it was warm. Something she could really appreciate right then.

Helga picked up her stuff from the floor and walked to the door. She opened it meaning to look for Arnold to maybe get a towel to dry her hair but found him sitting on the stairs, towel in hand. He passed it to her wordlessly and took the pile of clothes, the shoes she had left next to the door.

"I'll just go and throw these in the dryer. Wait here ok."

Helga nodded and Arnold walked down the remaining steps before he stopped again. Turning back to her he whispered, "Do want some tea or something?"

"Hot chocolate, if you've got any, would be nice…and Arnold…thanks. But you didn't have to do all this you know."

Arnold smirked at her and walked down the hallway.

Helga sat in Arnold's desk chair in front of his computer and started going through the play list. At least she started once figuring out how to find the play list and how to bring it up to full mode on screen. Why couldn't he be normal and just use a standard system, but then that's what you should expect from someone who had their entire bedroom under remote control by the time they were ten. Evil electronically-savvy bastard ¨ .

She looked through finding a diverse range of music genres. From the sheer size of his archive she knew better the to look for titles so she browsed by artist until she found 'Manson! Arnold's a Mansonite © ?' It was impossible to keep a straight face when he walked in a few minutes

"What are you grinning about?"

Helga chose a non-verbal response choosing to double click his mouse instead. When he suddenly heard 'Vodevil' playing softly from his speakers he rolled his eyes. Figures that his music archive would have something that tweaked Helga's warped sense of humor.

"So, Little Miss Perfect know she's dating a Mansonite?"

"Shut up Pataki."

Helga smirked at his grumble and left the computer and walked over to take her mug from Arnold. She sat on the floor leaning against the bed. Arnold sat next to her and they both sat quietly waiting for the chocolate to cool. Arnold looked into his mug before his eyes decided, of their own accord, to get a look at Helga from their corners. She almost didn't look real in the dull blue computer light. She looked really separate from the rest of the world and he found himself wanting to tug her back. Arnold took a breath and braced himself before allowing his curiosity to wander into dangerous territory.

"So…why were you on my roof."

Helga didn't answer at first. She just took a tentative sip of hot chocolate and grimaced. "I think you're hot chocolates gone off."

Arnold looked at his own before taking a small sip. He immediately recognized the problem. "Sorry, my Grandma mixes coconut into the power sometimes. It's pretty good once you get used to it."

"After Mirium's cooking, I can stomach anything."

He looked back at Helga and kept watching the side of her head as she took another small sip of her drink.

Helga felt him watching her and before she could rethink it answered, "I told you, I was getting out of the rain."

When the feeling of his stare didn't leave the side of her head, Helga knew she had no choice but to elaborate.

"I was taking a walk when it started raining. Yours was the closest roof with shelter."

"You were taking a walk…across the neighborhood roofs?"

"Arnold, it's two in the morning. It's not exactly safe to be taking a walk in the streets this time of night. And it's not so much walking as climbing. There are some really old buildings in this neighborhood that are hard to get to."

"So you were climbing across the neighborhood roofs at two in the morning in the rain."

"You make it sound really stupid saying it like that." Helga turned to put down her hot chocolate before puling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"I was going too Big Patty's roof. She has a nice Zen little garden. It wasn't raining when I left and when I got to her place it was…occupied. I didn't have time to make it back home so I headed here."

"You sound like you do this a lot."

"Ever since I was fourteen. That's when I realized that my window wasn't bolted and I'm right next to the fire escape. Sometimes I just need to get out of that house. Especially when it's gonna rain."

"Roof leaks?"

Helga seemed not to notice his joke.

"No it's just that in the rain it's okay to-" _cry.._. And didn't that sound just a little bit sad. She changed what she was gonna say but it was obvious the switch had happened by the speed the next words flew out of her mouth.  "I just like the rain is all. " Helga shrugged and continued staring the nothing in front of her, "I just didn't count on there being lightning that's all."

Arnold tilted his head and took in the bitter smile Helga was wearing. He didn't like that smile. He was surprised at how necessary it was to him to remove that smile.

"Occupied?"

"What?" Helga was startled out of her thoughts at his unexpected word. What the hell was he on about?

"You said Patty's roof was occupied?"

She loosened her grip around her knees and they slide forward and inch or two. "Ah yes. Dear Patty was entertaining Wolfgang this evening. In a very compromising position I might add."

Arnold would have enjoyed laughing in shock if he hadn't been taking a sip of his hot chocolate just then. His laugh caused a small bubble of the liquid to quickly form and explode on his face. He quickly grabbed the towel Helga had used to dry her hair to wipe the brown liquid from his wide open eyes.

"But-but she's dating Harold."

"I know. It's amazing what lengths she's going too to make the Lardball jealous. It's his own fault though, if he finds a Twinkie more interesting then his girlfriend he deserves to get kicked to the curb. I feel sorry for Wolfgang though, he really seems to like Patty."

"But how… I mean…Wolfgang. I didn't even know they got along!"

"Oh, Patty's in his Lit class and Mrs. Dellwer asked her to tutor him last term."

"And you know all this how?"

"It's amazing what you pick up when people don't know you're listening."

"You don't know anything about me do you?"

"You mean like the time you Gerald and Sid got drunk under that pier and-"

"Okay! Okay! So you know something."

Arnold held up his hands in mock defense and took a sip from his hot chocolate, he remembered that night…unfortunately. But Helga'd been sleeping over at Phoebe's, that's how they could sneak Gerald off without her finding out.

"You didn't…tell Phoebe…did you?"

"You're still alive aren't you."

"So that's a no?"

Helga debated giving him a straight answer before deciding she was having too much fun with this.

Helga just smirked her evil smirk and jerked both eyebrows up and down once while taking a sip of her hot chocolate. The girl really was a menace to his sanity.

Helga watched Arnold sulk for a minute while she finished her hot chocolate and he nursed his between his hands. Obviously his ever so perfect girlfriend didn't toy with his head too often. She didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed on his behalf. She waited for the inevitable follow up question and twenty seconds later wasn't disappointed.

"How'd you find out anyway. We promised never to talk about it again."

"To each other you mean."

Arnold expression was one of terror when he realized that someone had talked and he slowly ran through a list of who they might have talked to. Helga saw the wheels spinning at full speed inside his head and decided to put him out of his misery.

"Sid talks to his frog at night."

Slowly Arnold's features relaxed. The he fully registered what she'd just said and he blinked a few times be for grinning at her and asking, "What were you doing on Sid's roof Helga?"

"It was the quickest route home Arnoldo. and unlike you I have no secret desire to spy on Sid, you perv."

Arnold just shook his head and downed the last of his hot chocolate. He realized that the storm hadn't had a flash of lightning or a dulled roar of thunder in a while. He leaned his head against the bed and looked up he saw the rain had slowed to a heavy drizzle from it's former state as a downpour heavy enough to drown a cat, 'but not a Helga'. She could probably leave in another half an hour or so. He was still looking up when he thought of her going home and asked, "Won't your parents be worried about you?"

"They're in Alaska. I'm alone at home"

"What!"

Helga jerked back at Arnold's strong response just as he jerked forward to face her.

"How could they just leave you alone like that!"

Helga softened her voice when she answered hoping he'd take the hint and lower his before he woke anyone up.

"Olga called and asked them to come up for the weekend so they did. Bob left me his visa for food. In their mind they did the parent bit and it was fine to go."

"Helga, it's Wednesday night...in fact it's Thursday morning."

"So they decided to stay an extra week or two. I get them out of my head and the house to myself and they get to fawn over precious little Olga for awhile. Everybody's happy Arnoldo.

"Is that why you went out tonight. You were upset cause they left you alone?"

"No Arnold I'm not upset because they left me alone." She snapped back, "It's not like I haven't gotten used to it in the past."

Arnold flinched at Helga's suddenly hostile tone. She'd reverted back to the person he was a lot more familiar with then the joking, happy, slightly sadistic Helga he hadn't realized he'd met tonight.

"Helga…"

She squeezed her eyes shut and thought about tonight. Arnold had helped her out when he didn't have to and even if it was just Arnold being Arnold, it still meant something to her no matter how much she wished other wise. He deserved to at least get his questions answered and strangely she found herself wanting to tell him. Helga sighed and drew her legs in more tightly then she had before. She started at the top of her knees before she began to speak.

"Today, or I should say yesterday was my birthday."

"What? I thought your birthday was…I mean…um…well... I didn't know it was your birthday. Happy birthday Helga."

She shrugged "Almost no one does, Miriam couldn't remember it when she was filling out my school forms and it's not exactly like I throw parties or advertise it to the world or anything."

Arnold felt guilty until he registered a fact after hearing Helga mention her mother.

"You parents left you alone on your birthday?"

"It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Bob only realizes I'm a year older when his insurance sends him an update for his policy and then all he does is give me a couple hundred bucks and he forgets all over again."

"So, if it wasn't that, why…"

"Phoebe forgot."

"What?"

"Almost everyone forgets, except Phoebe. She's always remembered, always." Arnold flinched when he heard the almost mythical break in Helga's voice and his muscles tensed when he saw her eyes began to water by no tears fell. She apparently noticed her reaction because she dropped her forehead onto her knees and squeezed her arms tighter around her legs.

"I mean, I know her and Gerald's anniversary is in a few days and I know it's important to her, it's just…I thought that I was important to her too… I-I didn't think she'd actually…forget."

For the longest time Arnold felt as though he couldn't move. He sat and just listened to Helga cry next to him. He's brain was refusing to work let alone tell him what to do. When Lila cried she usually just wanted him to say or do something that he always quickly figured out. But Helga? Helga's crying had nothing to do with him. It would have happened whether he was there or not. It was just Helga curled into a small space of her own little world separate from him and everything else…all alone. So he just sat next to her feeling awkward.

And then he heard her sob.

Arnold didn't even realize he'd moved but Helga did. One moment she was screaming in her head to stop crying and the next everything was alright. Arnold was holding her and resting his chin on her head and rubbing his hands up and down her back. He was shushing her and telling her that it was ok and he'd find a way to fix it.

She lifted her head slightly and he moved his back a bit to let her look at him. He was just a couple of inches away from her. She sniffed quietly and looked at him before asking with a whisper, "Arnold will you please do something for me?"

"Of course Helga. What?"

"Will you…, she sniffed in hesitation, "…will you let me kiss you?"

" Helga I don't thi-"

"Please. I know you have a girlfriend and I know how loyal you are but please Arnold. I'm seventeen and I've never even kissed anyone and since I doubt it'll happen anytime soon and oomph-"

He didn't know if it was the hot chocolate or just her, but he knew he'd never get over how sweet she tasted. He used his tongue to circle hers and pull it into his own mouth. He tasted some coconut on the back of her tongue and realized the sweet taste was partly the hot chocolate...but only partially. He needed to get her closer and with one arm still rapped around her back pulled her onto his lap so that she straddled his thighs. She leaned into him and placed a hand against his chest and he-

Now understand, years later they would both blame the other for what happened next. She blamed him for a certain action with his tongue and he blamed her for a certain effect with her vocal cords.

-he quickly ran his tongue along her the top of her mouth, before they needed to break for air, from the back near her throat to the front by her teeth. And then Helga moaned and Arnold decided that air wasn't really all that important. He thrust his tongue back into her mouth and his upper body pushed her back to lean against the side of the bed. He lost track of his thoughts and actions as he plundered every grove and crevice in her mouth and explored as deeply as he could with just his tongue. He would have continued to do so if she hadn't pulled away for air.

His head collapsed against her shoulder and they both dragged in a few heavy, desperately need breathes before they realized where Arnold's hand had wandered to. Arnold blushed at the fact that his right hand, which he distinctly remembered using pull Helga onto his lap, had found it's way up the hem of the pajama top and his thumb was casually stroking the underside of her left breast.

He immediately stopped it and his blush darkened as he slowly and rather painfully began pulling his hand out of the top. At least until Helga grabbed his wrist. She lifted her head from where their hands were to look him in the eyes. Blue to blue but different shades. She kept her eyes on his and slowly pushed his hand up the back into the top until it fully covered her breast.

"Helga this isn't a good idea…"

"Please Arnold. I-I want it to be you."

He broke eye contact to look unseeingly at the shelf on next to his bed. He stopped to think of the right words to try and convince her away from what she thought she wanted.

"Helga you're upset. If you've never kissed anyone I'm pretty sure you've never done this and I-"

The computer began playing the track "Insatiable". He realized how long he hadn't even been hearing the music let alone what song was playing. Right then he barley knew where he was. Helga's hand cupped his though the shirt and caused his hand to squeeze her breast. She gave a little barley audible moan and some of his restraint temporarily crumbled.

"I –I just d-don't think it's a good idea to-"

"Arnold," Helga pulled herself higher from his upper thighs to straddling his hips, "No one's asking you to think."

She leaned in to kiss him again.

'Fuck restraint.'

*************************************

Arnold lay in his bed on his back. He was watching the black clouds slowly inch their way across the sky and break away to reveal the few stars you could see living in the city. He didn't really care though. He was sated and happy and comfortable and was considering never moving again. He sighed.

He felt her head lift itself from his chest and he looked to see her grinning up at him through the night with her Cheshire cat grin. "Are you always this hard to sleep with or do you eventually settle down?"

He grinned back at her and reached to pull a strand of hair away from her face. Helga watched him study her face as his thoughts wandered to where ever they currently belonged. And just enjoyed being where she was. With Arnold. In Arnold's bed. In Arnold's arms. 'Thank you birthday fairy'

She laid her head back on his chest and studied his shelf. Her eyes were drawn to the silver frame to the left of his potato clock. A though fluttered around in her head and she tried to pin it down. She felt his chest rumble as he spoke.

"This changes everything you know."

And just like that the wings were ripped of her thought and it was nailed into her conscious thoughts to pop her little afterglow bubble. Lila. Helga turned away from him to curl up on her side. "Don't worry. I won't tell her anything. I won't tell anyone so no fear Arnoldo."

"Helga..." Arnold lifted himself on one arm to look at her and saw her lying with her hand covering her mouth and her eyes scrunched tightly. The girl was impossible sometimes and he was shocked to realized he loved that about her. She thrived on knowing he couldn't figure her out and probably never would. He knew what he'd been waiting for. "Helga, Lila and I broke up."

He lay back down and wrapped his arm around her so that they were spooned together and pulled her as close as possible. It was therefore solely due to this position that he felt her heart beat spike up at his words.

"Really I didn't know."

"No one did." Not even Lila, not yet. He'd speak to her in the morning but that was for the best and tomorrow. He wouldn't be able to look at her the same way. Not anymore. "Now are you always this hard to sleep with or do you eventually settle down?"

She swatted his arm, "Shut up Arnold."

He listened to the music switch to Sinatra's "Ms Jones" and felt her heart rate slowly and steadily decrease. Just when he thought she was asleep she spoke, albeit from the very edge of sleep.

"Just because you and you girlfriend broke up…doesn't change any thing football-head to-to-" she yawned, "tomorrow it'll be back to normal for us. Same…as…before…"

Arnold waited another few seconds to be sure she was asleep before turning her to face him and brushing the hair out of her eyes. "Over my dead body Helga." He wrapped his arms around her was and pulled her against his chest. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, sighed and closed his eyes. "My Helga…"

And they both fell asleep in the dull blue light of the computer screen.

End.

**Author's Note:**

> Was going to write a lemon for this once upon a time. A sequel as well dealing with the nest day. Maybe I still will one day.
> 
> So if you're reading and enjoying and feel like it, you can always buy me a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/saintandnyrah  
> Not required but would be appreciated. :)


End file.
